Skype for iPhone “blocked” in Germany, but not really

German iPhone carrier T-Mobile has vowed to block Skype for iPhone from being …

Deutsche Telekom, parent company to T-Mobile, has announced that it plans to block access to Skype for iPhone (read our review of it here) in Germany. The reasoning ultimately comes down to subscribers' contractual obligations in Germany, though the company offers up murky reasons to support its decision, saying that Skype for iPhone will put an undue burden on T-Mobile's cellular network as well as WiFi hotspots.

All mobile operators in Germany (as well as France) bar users from using any VoIP services on their devices, meaning that Skype for iPhone will fall into this category regardless of whether it's being used over the cell network or WiFi. Aside from that, however, T-Mobile seems to think part of the reason it needs to block the app is because it will somehow be held responsible for unreliability.

"[T]he high level of traffic would hinder our network performance, and because if the Skype programme didn’t work properly, customers would make us responsible for it," T-Mobile spokesperson Alexander von Schmettow told The Local.

T-Mobile plans to somehow block iPhone users from downloading Skype from the App Store, though the logistics of this don't seem very well thought through. One iPhone user in Berlin told The Local that he had already downloaded the app and was using it just fine over WiFi networks. Additionally, Skype noted on its site that the app was already the top download for the App Store in Germany. So much for that.

"I find it quite telling that Deutsche Telekom would be so bold as to announce this arbitrary blocking of Skype," Skype's general counsel Robert Miller wrote. "They pretend that their action has to do with technical concerns: this is baseless. Skype works perfectly well on iPhone, as hundreds of thousands of people globally can already readily attest."